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In today’s day and age, everyone and everything is jockeying for our attention – and rightfully so. There are a lot of things out there that warrant your attention. The problem is you only have so much time.

If you’re anything like me, you have a lot of interests, hobbies, and not to mention – commitments. With so many things and only so much time, what is one to do?

First, you must value your time. We’ve all heard the phrase “Time is Money”. But I don’t necessarily agree with that. Time is much more valuable than money. Time is the only thing that you can’t create more of. It’s a non-renewable resource in your life. And time is only money, if you are doing the right things with your time. If you are spending your time doing non-productive things, then that time isn’t very valuable.

If you are ever going to reach your massive goals, then you will have to manage your time. It’s unlikely that you’ll just fall into success and accidentally achieve your goals.

Time Management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific activities. There are many tools, resources, and even practices your can use to help manage your time. We’ll talk more about those in just a minute.

But first, I want to talk about the greatest equalizer among us all – time. No matter who you are – your age, income, gender, race, or relegion – you have the same amount of time as the next person. It’s how you manage your time that will set you apart.

Do you know someone who seems to be getting so much more done in less time or someone who has a crazy amount of responsibility but still manages everything? Someone that comes to mind for me is Elon Musk. Elon is the CEO of multiple billion dollar companies – SpaceX, Tesla, Solar City, and the Boring Company. How does he do it?

Or how about the hypothetical part time real estate investor/nurse next door with 2 kids? How does she manage to maintain a full-time job, raise 2 children and everything that comes with that, AND build a real estate portfolio?

These people don’t have some magic portal with extra hours in their day. Rather, they manage their time.

It’s said that we make over 35,000 decisions every single day. That’s a lot of brainpower being used on both small and large decisions. So how do you decide what’s important and deserves your attention and what doesn’t?

You can use two criteria:

Is it important?

Is it urgent?

If the matter is both important and urgent, then you must address it. These are what I like to call fires every day that you must put out. Next, the sweet spot is a matter that is not urgent (yet) but is important. This is where you’ll ideally spend your most productive time.

Then we have matters that are urgent but not important, and lastly matters that are neither urgent nor important. This is where you should not spend your time.

It’s up to you to decide what’s important to you, since that’s different for every one.

Now let’s talk about some ways you can manage your time.

Time Block

Turn off notifications

Most important tasks first

Remove distractions

Tools & Resources

A physical or electronic planner/journal

The notes section in your phone

The Pomodoro Technique

Rescue Time app

A mistake I’ve found myself making is telling myself I’m too busy to take on something that will require a bit of work and time, but is productive. On the flip side, pitch me an idea for a day on the water fishing, and I have a hard time turning it down.

Don’t fall into this trap of telling yourself you’re too busy, or don’t have time. We all have time – the same 24 hours. The question is, what do you make time for? If you’re making time to go to happy hours, set your fantasy football lineup, and look for tickets to that concert this summer, but then tell yourself you’re too busy read about that topic that interests you, train for a half marathon, or go to a conference, then you are making excuses for yourself.

Guard your time. Treat it as your most precious resource. You have the potential to do anything in this life you want. You just have to do the things that will free up your time and allow you to do the things in this life you want.

“If you’ll live today like no one else, you can list the rest of your life like no one else.” – Dave Ramsey

Take control of your time. Hold yourself accountable. Build the life you want.